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Schools

Charter Oak School Board Discusses May Revise

The district had already moved to rescind teacher layoffs, but still laments budget situation.

In an apparent reversal from past meetings, Thursday night’s meeting of the Charter Oak Unified School District School Board maintained a conciliatory tone. Much of the evening was a weighing of positives and negatives in regards to the California budget situation, with the agreement reached that schools are being left in a state of limbo.

During Director of Fiscal Services Kathy Perkins’ presentation on the May Revise and what it meant for Charter Oak, she noted, although the district’s funding will remain flat from this current school year, that still represents only a part of funding promised under Proposition 98. The 1988 proposition requires that a minimum percentage of the state budget be spent on education, and as of the 2010-2011 school year, school districts have only seen 80 cents on the dollar promised.

Prior to this meeting and after the release last week of Governor Brown’s May Revise to the state budget, Charter Oak had already moved to rescind teacher layoffs, much like Glendora Unified. However, also like Glendora Unified, temporary relief from staving off layoffs was tempered by the overall outlook.

“My big concern is that the governor’s budget is predicated on passing the tax extensions,” said Board Member Don Davis, referring to a vehicle fee, sales tax, and other tariffs earmarked towards education set to expire. “I’m feeling very uncomfortable where we sit. I think it’s premature to talk about a flat budget.”

As Perkins noted, funding for education is about $1,200 less per student than promised under Prop. 98, and has brought California to 50th in the nation in educational spending by nearly any measure. She also noted that the budget situation is such that schools have difficulties making long-term budgetary decisions due to the year-to-year volatility of the budget. In this respect, the board hoped that Governor Brown’s budget would not be without teeth.

“My real hope is that the governor’s budget will include legislative action in that package,” said District Superintendent Mike Hendricks.

California is set for a budgetary deadline of June 15. Despite the fact that in recent years fiscal and political negotiations have sometimes dragged in to January, school districts face a June 30 deadline to act on state spending and submit their own budgets.

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